Articles - Page 3

Bland Brands Beware: Optimizely’s New Identity Brings Human Creativity to its Agentic AI and AEO Ambitions

matt-garrepy

<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/critics/geetha-rajan">Geetha Rajan</a> is a strategy executive advising Fortune 500 companies on AI adoption, AI transformation, and organizational change, and a CMS Critic contributor. <hr /> <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibe_coding">Vibe coding</a> has collapsed the barrier to building software. It hasn’t moved the barrier to selling it.The numbers tell the story clearly. According to the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2025/">Stack Overflow 2025 Developer Survey,</a> which surveyed nearly 50,000 developers, 84% now use AI coding tools. Yet only 29% trust their accuracy, down from 40% the year prior. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/google-cloud-platform">Google Cloud’s</a> <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://linearb.io/resources/dora-report">DORA 2025 State of DevOps Report</a> puts daily AI tool usage across software teams at 90%. The volume of output this is producing is staggering. And it is flooding enterprise procurement queues with products that weren’t built for the environment they’re trying to enter.I’ve spent the past several years evaluating early-stage AI products as a judge and mentor across startup competitions and accelerators and conducting independent research into why enterprise AI initiatives fail at scale. The pattern I see repeatedly: the tools are getting faster, more polished, and easier to spin up. But the enterprise buying process hasn’t changed at all. And in a market flooded with vibe-coded submissions, the gap between what founders ship and what enterprises actually purchase is wider than ever.<h3 id="features-were-never-the-moat">Features Were Never the Moat</h3>Here’s the uncomfortable truth for vendors watching their feature differentiation erode: in enterprise, features were rarely what closed the deal in the first place.I’ve been in the rooms where these decisions get made. The vendor who won was rarely the one with the best demo. It was the one who made the enterprise feel safest.Safe means something specific. It means the CISO’s questions were answered before they were asked. It means compliance documentation showed up in meeting one, not when procurement requested it. It means the vendor understood the buyer’s data architecture before pitching a solution that depended on it.The security data makes the CISO’s caution rational rather than obstructive. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.veracode.com/blog/spring-2026-genai-code-security/">Veracode’s Spring 2026 GenAI Code Security Update</a> found that 45% of AI-generated code contains security flaws – and that cross-site scripting failures appear in 85% of AI-generated code samples tested. Vibe coding has commoditized the how of software development. It has raised the price of the why. When anyone can generate a feature, the buyer’s focus shifts from the code to the standards that ensure the tool can actually function inside a composable, integrated enterprise stack. Architectural credibility isn’t something you can prompt your way into.Most founders discover the CISO has veto power in week ten, when a data residency concern surfaces that could have been addressed in the first conversation – and the deal quietly dies. I’ve watched this happen: a founder demos beautifully, earns a pilot, and learns in month three that their data handling doesn’t meet the buyer’s regulatory requirements. The product didn’t change. The environment it was entering never changed either. Nobody asked.The vendors who navigate this successfully don’t avoid the security conversation. They lead with it. Vibe coding can replicate a feature. It cannot replicate the organizational credibility that comes from having navigated these conversations before.<h3 id="you’re-not-selling-to-a-platform-decision-—-you’re-selling-to-a-population">You’re Not Selling to a Platform Decision — You’re Selling to a Population</h3>Every enterprise contains roughly the same distribution of people, each requiring a completely different approach. <figure class="image image_resized" style="width:44.67%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/04/pilot-to-scale-diagram.jpg" /></figure>The Four Segments Model – Pilots to Scale™ Framework From my research across hundreds of enterprise engagements, four segments appear reliably. Champions – roughly 20% of any organization – are already experimenting and will advocate internally. The mistake is finding one and treating it as the whole story. Explorers, the largest group at around 40%, want to adopt but don’t know where to start. They need structure, not a blank canvas. Skeptics have watched technology initiatives fail before; they move on evidence, not enthusiasm. Experts have deep technical fluency but limited organizational reach – waste them on easy problems and you lose their endorsement entirely.One playbook fails across all four. The vendors who succeed map their approach to the segment in front of them, not the one they wish they were talking to. Vibe coding can ship a feature overnight. It cannot segment an organization’s adoption posture for you.<h3 id="the-three-things-that-actually-close-enterprise-deals">The Three Things That Actually Close Enterprise Deals</h3>What remains from every enterprise evaluation I’ve been part of or studied are three things: trust, predictability, and demonstrated value.Trust is built before the first slide. It comes from signals about organizational seriousness, security readiness, and long-term viability. In a market suddenly flooded with vibe-coded tools, the question enterprise buyers are quietly asking is: will this vendor exist in three years? Will they support the integration we build around them? Can I defend this decision internally when something breaks?Predictability stems from the pilot’s structure. A pilot run on clean, sanitized data in a controlled environment is not a pilot – it’s a controlled experiment. Real enterprise environments have missing fields, inconsistent formats, legacy systems feeding into one another, and edge cases that nobody documented. The product that performed beautifully in the demo encounters production and produces something entirely different. Founders who scope pilots like a product trial – 30 days, friendly users, no real production complexity – win the pilot and lose the deal.Value is earned through a business case the buyer helped build. An ROI model you construct alone will be challenged on every assumption when it reaches a procurement committee. A business case built with the buyer’s own numbers and validated by their own team becomes their internal mandate. They will defend it. You are not selling them a product – you are giving them the ammunition to buy it.<h2 id="the-adoption-gap-vibe-coding-ignores">The Adoption Gap Vibe Coding Ignores</h2>While vibe coding has produced an explosion in code volume, the reality of production is stark. According to <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://fortune.com/2025/08/18/mit-report-95-percent-generative-ai-pilots-at-companies-failing-cfo/">MIT’s NANDA research, 95% of generative AI pilots fail to deliver measurable ROI </a>despite tens of billions in cumulative spend. McKinsey’s 2025 State of AI report found that only 5.5% of organizations are seeing real financial returns. And a March 2026 survey of technology leaders by Digital Applied found that just 14% of enterprises have reached production scale for AI agents.<ul><li>We aren’t suffering from a lack of code. We’re suffering from a lack of certainty.</li><li>78% of enterprises have deployed AI. Only 4% are scaling it.</li><li>That gap is not a technology problem.</li></ul>It is an execution environment failure – one I’ve tracked directly through my own interviews with over 200 operational leaders, and the basis for the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.operablestrategy.com/research">Pilots to Scale™ framework.</a> The middle layer of the enterprise, the managers responsible for translating platform decisions into operational reality, is consistently where adoption stalls. Not because of executive resistance. The organizational infrastructure required to operationalize what was purchased hasn’t been built yet.Vibe coding accelerates the supply side of this equation. It does nothing for the demand side. If anything, it widens the gap – more products entering an environment no more ready to absorb them than it was before.<h3 id="what-the-moat-actually-is">What the Moat Actually Is</h3>The vendors who will survive this moment are not the ones who out-feature the vibe coders. They’re the ones who have built something vibe coding genuinely cannot replicate: a track record of navigating enterprise complexity, a community of practitioners who can vouch for them, and an organizational understanding of what it takes to get a platform adopted – not just purchased.What enterprise is buying has always had the same answer. Confidence that this will still be working and still be supported in three years. Assurance that the vendor understands their environment well enough to be a real partner in it. A reduction of organizational risk, not an addition of organizational capability.Vibe coding didn’t break the enterprise software model. It exposed what the model was. <hr /><h3 id="upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</h3> <img style="width:34.15%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/01/logo_jday_hor.png" /><h4 id="joomladay-usa-2026"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.jdayusa.com/">JoomlaDay USA 2026</a></h4>April 29 - May 2, 2026 – Delray Beach, FloridaBe part of the Joomla community in one of the most iconic cities in the world! JoomlaDay USA 2026 is coming to Delray Beach, and you can join us for a dynamic event packed with insights, workshops, and networking opportunities. Learn from top Joomla experts and developers offering valuable insights and real-world solutions. Participate in interactive workshops and sessions and enhance your skills in Joomla management, development, design, and more. And connect with fellow Joomla enthusiasts, developers, and professionals from across the world.<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.jdayusa.com/"> Book your seats today.</a> <img style="width:30.06%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/01/cms-summit-26-logo.jpg" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-summit-26"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit26">CMS Summit 26</a></h4>May 12-13, 2026 – Frankfurt, GermanyThe best conferences create space for honest, experience-based conversations. Not sales pitches. Not hype. Just thoughtful exchanges between people who spend their days designing, building, running, and evolving digital experiences. CMS Summit brings together people who share real stories from their work and platforms and who are interested in learning from each other on how to make things better. Over two days in Frankfurt, you can expect practitioner-led talks grounded in experience, conversations about trade-offs, constraints, and decisions, and time to compare notes with peers facing similar challenges. Space is limited for this exclusive event, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit26/tickets">so book your seats today.</a> <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://kontent.ai/events-and-webinars/raise-amsterdam/?utm_campaign=awareness-fy26&amp;utm_source=cms-critic&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;pi_campaign_id=117478"><img style="width:23.45%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/04/raise-logo-kontent.jpg" alt="" /></a><h4 id="raise-amsterdam"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://kontent.ai/events-and-webinars/raise-amsterdam/?utm_campaign=awareness-fy26&amp;utm_source=cms-critic&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;pi_campaign_id=117478">RAISE Amsterdam</a></h4>May 20, 2026 – Amsterdam, NetherlandsSponsored by Kontent.ai, RAISE Amsterdam brings together bold marketing and technology leaders to explore how agentic AI is reshaping the way ambitious brands create and deliver content and what it takes to use it safely, responsibly, and with proper governance. Experience the ideas that are shaping the future and dive into big thinking, innovative strategies, and expert insights. Held at the Klein Canvas, Volkshotel, you'll hear from world-class speakers in dynamic sessions that will reveal how AI-powered content operations are accelerating production, improving governance, and driving creative impact. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://kontent.ai/events-and-webinars/raise-amsterdam/?utm_campaign=awareness-fy26&amp;utm_source=cms-critic&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;pi_campaign_id=117478">Limited spots are available, so book yours today.</a> <img style="width:30.13%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/12/image-1765546475634.png" /><h4 id="umbraco-codegarden-2026"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://codegarden.umbraco.com/">Umbraco Codegarden 2026</a></h4>June 10–11, 2026 – Copenhagen, DKJoin us in Copenhagen (or online) for the biggest Umbraco conference in the world – two full days of learning, genuine conversations, and the kind of inspiration that brings business leaders, developers, and digital creators together. Codegarden 2026 is packed with both business and tech content, from deep-dive workshops and advanced sessions to real-world case studies and strategy talks. You’ll leave with ideas, strategies, and knowledge you can put into practice immediately. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://codegarden.umbraco.com/">Book your tickets today.</a> <img style="width:36.69%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/01/open-source-cms-26.jpg" /><h4 id="open-source-cms-26"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/opensourcecms26">Open Source CMS 26</a></h4>October 20–21, 2026 – Utrecht, NetherlandsJoin us for the first annual edition of our prestigious international conference dedicated to making open source CMS better. This event is already being called the “missing gathering place” for the open source CMS community – an international conference with confirmed participants from Europe and North America. Be part of a friendly mix of digital leaders from notable open source CMS projects, agencies, even a few industry analysts who get together to learn, network, and talk about what really matters when it comes to creating better open source CMS projects right now and for the foreseeable future. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/opensourcecms26/tickets">Book your tickets today.</a>

You can ship in days with AI. But you still can’t sell to the enterprise. Here's why

geetha-rajan

All Systems Go for AEO: Conductor’s AgentStack Aims to Power the Next Era of AI Search Visibility 

Matt & Matt, Episode 4: PLAY BALL! Adobe Summit at Bat, Optimizely, HubSpot, and AI Agents on Deck

cms-critic-staff

Agent Evolution: Kontent.ai Brings Intelligent ‘Expert Agents’ to its Agentic CMS

Adobe Summit 2026, Day 1: The Rise of the 'Agentic Enterprise'

mattmcqueeny

Life after FAIR? Don’t despair. The pivot to TYPO3 could unlock the future of open source CMS

Weglot - The easiest way to translate a website

The easiest way to translate a website

#18164c

The Last Migration: Why Universities Keep Paying for Platforms That Don't Evolve

isabellaotero

HubSpot Puts Context on the Spot, Enhancing AEO and Agents to Help Marketers Win AI Search

<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/critics/isabellaotero">Bastian Sirvend</a><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/critics/dan-drapeau"> </a>is a CMS/DXP expert and analyst, founder of <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://sutsche.com/">SUTSCHE</a> and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.enhancely.ai/">enhancely.ai</a>, and a CMS Critic contributor. <hr /> We’ve installed <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://blog.cloudflare.com/emdash-wordpress/">EmDash, Cloudflare’s new open-source CMS,</a> which was released on April 1st. No joke, even if the timing looked like one. Naturally, we were curious, as LinkedIn and the like were bursting at the seams with posts about EmDash’s tech and functionality, and how it’s supposedly the “WordPress killer.”Since we’d already got it up and running, we went straight to building a plugin for <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.enhancely.ai/">enhancely.ai</a>, our automation platform that addresses a critical gap in web content: broken or missing structured data. It instantly generates schema markup, enabling AI tools like <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://chatgpt.com/">ChatGPT</a> and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.perplexity.ai/">Perplexity</a> to better understand website content without requiring manual rewrites.Automated schema markup without an editor having to lift a finger. I'm happy to report that it all worked: A fully functional CMS in what felt like an hour, with a plugin created and packaged. We even found a bug in EmDash along the way, fixed it, and submitted a pull request. What a day.And ever since then, one question has been on my mind: how will this change the way we select a CMS? There's a lot to unpack here, but let's start with how we've been doing it up until now — and why I believe EmDash is changing things. <h3 id="how-to-select-a-cms:-the-sutsche-approach">How to select a CMS: The SUTSCHE approach</h3>When our team at <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://sutsche.com/">SUTSCHE</a> supports clients in selecting a system, we consider the decision from five different angles: <ol><li>How well does the system meet the functional requirements? </li><li>How does it fit into the overall picture, both technically and architecturally? </li><li>How does it perform within the ecosystem, in integrations, and in interfaces? </li><li>What are the financial and strategic implications — both now and in three years? </li><li>And how will it actually be adopted and operated by the people within the organisation?</li></ol><figure class="image image_resized" style="width:93.64%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/04/bildschirmfoto-2026-04-03-um-22.png" /></figure>Five comprehensive dimensions. Not just a checklist.That's always been our approach. Because choosing a CMS isn’t just about features. It’s a decision about the foundation on which a company builds its content. It’s about the paths that lead to the website or shop, not just a piece of software where you tick boxes. Ultimately, it’s a project you’re buying, and that is far more complex than mere functionality.Then <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://modelcontextprotocol.io/docs/getting-started/intro">MCP servers</a> were introduced. A new kind of functionality that's operating on a different level from standard functions that are carried out manually. In short, more than just APIs. Suddenly, tasks that had previously been carried out by hand – content migration, schema adjustments, repetitive administrative tasks — could be handled by agents. The CMS could now be controlled remotely. Manual processes that had been time-consuming for years could suddenly be automated. We've taken this into account in our assessment. A new dimension, a proven framework. Good. That makes sense.<h3 id="but-with-the-release-of-emdash,-something-different-happened-for-me…">But with the release of EmDash, something different happened for me…</h3>Not because it’s MCP-compatible. Not because it’s built on <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://astro.build/">Astro</a> or MIT-licensed or can run on <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.cloudflare.com/">Cloudflare</a>. Because it was built in two months. By an experienced developer, to be sure. And using AI agents. But still, two months for a complete CMS with an admin panel, plugin system, authentication, migration tool, and MCP server?The step from “agents controlling a CMS” to “agents building a CMS” sounds big. It isn’t anymore.Because it means that features that are still missing today will be there tomorrow, and just a few prompts away. The gap between systems — the gap that has structured the selection process for years — isn’t collapsing dramatically. It’s simply shrinking quietly. And other things that should concern customers within the five dimensions are becoming increasingly important.<h3 id="and-this-is-precisely-where-i-ask-myself,-‘how-does-this-change-the-way-we-make-decisions?’">And this is precisely where I ask myself, ‘How does this change the way we make decisions?’</h3>The functional dimension — does the system have feature X, to what standard, to what extent — has long been the loudest voice in the selection process. It isn’t going to disappear. But it is becoming less prominent. Because the argument that “our competitor doesn’t have that yet” is losing its impact more quickly. Anyone who thinks this is just theory is mistaken. From my own experience, I can say that the author of this document has created a fully functional website based on a CMS using <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://code.claude.com/docs/en/overview">Claude Code,</a> the documentation for some fairly significant CMS platforms, a template/style guide, and a healthy dose of curiosity. Including a few functional enhancements.Let’s shift perspective and move up a level here, too. While I was moderating a product presentation, the question popped up in a chat: “Please don’t stone me, but what exactly is the difference between <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/typo3">TYPO3</a> and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/umbraco">Umbraco</a>?” An absolutely valid question at first, but one participant’s answer astonished me. “It's the technology stack," they said.Yes, that's true. TYPO3 is PHP, while Umbraco is .NET. But are these still real differentiators? The arguments had already been watered down when it came to clients using agencies to do the programming work. With SaaS, this has been further diluted. And now? In times when IBM shares are plummeting because Claude Code can also speak <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COBOL">COBOL</a>, migrating from one technology stack to the next is really just a matter of a prompt and a couple of sharp glances (my old math teacher always used to say when simplifying complex equations, “you just need to take a sharp look once, and then you’ve got it”). Of course, that’s an exaggeration. There’s still quite a bit involved — but the hurdle is eroding more and more.<h3 id="what-remains-are-the-other-four-dimensions-of-decision-making.-and-i-believe-they-are-becoming-more-important-–-not-less-so.">What remains are the other four dimensions of decision-making. And I believe they are becoming more important – not less so.</h3>Who do I entrust my content foundation to in the long term? Who will still be supporting the system in three years? What ecosystem is growing around it? Which partners, which community, which integrations? How does it fit into the organization, into the teams, into the actual work processes? These aren’t new questions. But they’re coming to the forefront. And as I think about it further while writing this, I come to the conclusion that, in the end, it’s still the people, agencies, and project stakeholders who have to bring it to life. No matter what “it” turns out to be. Even with incredibly impressive AI support in feature development, the piece of software must fit into the organization, the IT landscape, and the client’s processes — or find a place there.And as I think about this further, my talk with <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/critics/janus-boye">Janus Boye</a> at the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://aarhus25.boye-co.com/">Boye Aarhus 25 Conference</a> might become even more important. The point was that, due to the development of AI and the lack of adaptation on the part of customers, something needs to change along the entire value chain.<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:89.26%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/04/boye_adoptiongap.png" /></figure> In my view, the role of agencies needs to change dramatically, away from pure development and away from being a “workshop” and towards becoming consultants. The new agency helps clients with organizational development and process optimization. It helps clients to measure and evaluate what has been built and produced, and then to adapt, refine, and optimize it — so that it works even better for them.<figure class="image image_resized" style="width:89.44%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/04/boye_adoptiongap2.png" /></figure> In my presentation, I outlined the role of vendors as enablers. They empower agencies to use the software to ask the right questions of the client and to initiate change, so that the software can truly make a difference. In my view, we may need to rethink or re-evaluate the role of vendors. Beyond a controlled development process, it is perhaps the establishment and empowerment, knowledge transfer, and network design that ultimately bring an ecosystem to life and make the difference. The entire interplay of technology, processes, and collaboration. A genuine network.EmDash currently has no satisfactory answer (at least not yet) to most of the points we consider when selecting systems and what we’ve discussed. Version 0.1.0 is just version 0.1.0. It’s been “on the market” since 2026. No ecosystem. No community. No track record. And I don’t see it as a WordPress killer, either. And as I said, this isn’t based on functionality, tech stack, or anything like that. However, it is a demonstration of what is technically possible. And for some use cases, it’s already a valid choice (quickly creating a landing page, setting up satellite sites, putting up a blackout page, testing a prototype).For us at SUTSCHE, this means we’ve been asking the right questions all along. Not because we foresaw it, but because a structured decision has always been about more than just a list of features. <hr /><h3 id="upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</h3> <img style="width:34.15%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/01/logo_jday_hor.png" /><h4 id="joomladay-usa-2026"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.jdayusa.com/">JoomlaDay USA 2026</a></h4>April 29 - May 2, 2026 – Delray Beach, FloridaBe part of the Joomla community in one of the most iconic cities in the world! JoomlaDay USA 2026 is coming to Delray Beach, and you can join us for a dynamic event packed with insights, workshops, and networking opportunities. Learn from top Joomla experts and developers offering valuable insights and real-world solutions. Participate in interactive workshops and sessions and enhance your skills in Joomla management, development, design, and more. And connect with fellow Joomla enthusiasts, developers, and professionals from across the world.<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.jdayusa.com/"> Book your seats today.</a> <img style="width:30.06%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/01/cms-summit-26-logo.jpg" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-summit-26"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit26">CMS Summit 26</a></h4>May 12-13, 2026 – Frankfurt, GermanyThe best conferences create space for honest, experience-based conversations. Not sales pitches. Not hype. Just thoughtful exchanges between people who spend their days designing, building, running, and evolving digital experiences. CMS Summit brings together people who share real stories from their work and platforms and who are interested in learning from each other on how to make things better. Over two days in Frankfurt, you can expect practitioner-led talks grounded in experience, conversations about trade-offs, constraints, and decisions, and time to compare notes with peers facing similar challenges. Space is limited for this exclusive event, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit26/tickets">so book your seats today.</a> <img style="width:30.13%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/12/image-1765546475634.png" /><h4 id="umbraco-codegarden-2026"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://codegarden.umbraco.com/">Umbraco Codegarden 2026</a></h4>June 10–11, 2026 – Copenhagen, DKJoin us in Copenhagen (or online) for the biggest Umbraco conference in the world – two full days of learning, genuine conversations, and the kind of inspiration that brings business leaders, developers, and digital creators together. Codegarden 2026 is packed with both business and tech content, from deep-dive workshops and advanced sessions to real-world case studies and strategy talks. You’ll leave with ideas, strategies, and knowledge you can put into practice immediately. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://codegarden.umbraco.com/">Book your tickets today.</a> <img style="width:36.69%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/01/open-source-cms-26.jpg" /><h4 id="open-source-cms-26"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/opensourcecms26">Open Source CMS 26</a></h4>October 20–21, 2026 – Utrecht, NetherlandsJoin us for the first annual edition of our prestigious international conference dedicated to making open source CMS better. This event is already being called the “missing gathering place” for the open source CMS community – an international conference with confirmed participants from Europe and North America. Be part of a friendly mix of digital leaders from notable open source CMS projects, agencies, even a few industry analysts who get together to learn, network, and talk about what really matters when it comes to creating better open source CMS projects right now and for the foreseeable future. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/opensourcecms26/tickets">Book your tickets today.</a>

After EmDash — what am I actually buying when I choose a CMS?

bastiansirvend

<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/critics/scottliewehr">Scott Liewehr</a><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/critics/dan-drapeau"> </a>is Global Vice President of Market Strategy &amp; Growth at <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/sitecore">Sitecore</a> and a CMS Critic contributor. <hr /> I’ve spent over twenty-five years helping organizations communicate with their customers through digital channels. First as an industry analyst and now at <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.sitecore.com/">Sitecore</a>, I’ve watched this industry invent, reinvent, and re-reinvent concepts like content management and digital experience management so many times I’ve lost count. Yet, through every cycle, one thing remained true: a human created the message, and another human consumed it. The technology was just the delivery mechanism. The fundamental exchange was always human-to-human. H2H, if you will.That’s over. For the marketers who have realized this, there is a quiet, existential grief. We’ve spent decades trying to forge an emotional “spark” between our brand’s soul and a human customer. Admitting that this spark must now travel through a cold, transformer-based intermediary feels like a betrayal of the craft. But ignoring it won't bring back the 'good old days' of direct traffic.<h3 id="where-most-marketers-are-right-now">Where most marketers are right now</h3>Right now, AI is a creation tool. Marketers are using <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://chatgpt.com/">ChatGPT</a>, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot/organizations">Copilot</a>, AI agents within their platform – pick your flavor – to draft blog posts, generate ad copy, and produce email variations at scale. The industry is spending a lot of energy debating whether this is going to kill copywriters (it isn’t), whether AI-generated content is “authentic” (depends on who’s using it), and whether we should ban the em dash forever (I refuse!). But while we’re having those debates, something more fundamental is shifting underneath us.What’s happening is simple: AI has inserted itself between the marketer and the audience. The marketer is still a human. The audience is still a human. But the creation process now has a machine in the middle. Call it H2A2H: Human to AI to Human. The AI helps you write more, faster, better. But the brief hasn’t changed. You’re still writing for a person. The buyer is still the target reader. The website visitor is still the audience. The AI is a productivity tool, and the humans on either end of the equation are the ones that matter.This is the state of the art right now. And here’s the thing: most marketing organizations think this is cutting-edge.They’re already behind.<h3 id="the-shift-that-needs-to-happen-next">The shift that needs to happen next</h3>Here’s what needs to change, and what I think most people in our industry haven’t fully internalized yet: the audience has shifted. It’s not just that AI is helping us create content. It’s that AI has become the primary consumer of that content. An LLM crawls your blog post. An answer engine indexes your press release. An agentic search system ingests your product page and synthesizes it alongside your competitors’ claims. And then – and this is the critical part – that AI delivers its own version of your message to the human at the end of the chain.The full sequence is now H2A→A2H: Human to AI to AI to Human. The first A helps you create. The second A decides whether and how your brand shows up when a customer asks a question. That second A is the new gatekeeper. And here’s what makes it especially interesting: that second AI has something you’ve never had. It has real-time context about exactly what the person on the other end is looking for.Most marketers haven’t noticed the ground shifting. Even the AEO/GEO crowd – the Answer Engine Optimization and Generative Engine Optimization folks – are trapped in H2A2H thinking. They’re adding FAQ blocks and schema markup to every page, treating machine-readability as an afterthought to human-centric design. Their goal is to make human content “parseable” by LLMs. That’s a search engine mindset in a synthesizer world. These marketers are still trying to rank first in a list. But in an H2A→A2H reality, the list doesn’t exist. There is only one single, synthesized answer. And if your brand isn't part of that synthesis, you don't just rank low, you don't exist.<h3 id="the-brief-changes">The Brief Changes</h3>If all of this is true – and I believe it is – then the creative brief has to change. Consider the evolution:<ul><li>H2H: “Write something compelling for our target buyer to read.”</li><li>H2A2H: “Use AI to write something compelling for our target buyer to read. Oh, and add some structured data so LLMs can parse it too.”</li><li>H2A→A2H: “Use AI to create content that an LLM will select as the authoritative source and deliver to a buyer in exactly the context they need – because the LLM knows what they’re looking for better than we do.”</li></ul>Read those three briefs again. The first two are variations of the same job: write for a human. The third is a genuinely different job. You’re no longer crafting a message for someone to consume directly. You’re crafting raw material for an AI to carry faithfully to a person. That distinction – crafting for direct consumption versus crafting for faithful carriage – is, I think, the strategic pivot of the next decade in content marketing. And almost nobody is talking about it.<h3 id="why-the-second-‘a’-is-a-better-personalizer-than-you-are">Why the second ‘A’ is a better personalizer than you are</h3>Here’s the part of this argument that marketers will find most uncomfortable: the LLM on the other end of this chain is better at serving your customer than you are.When you write a blog post or a product page, you’re writing for a segment – “a senior decision-maker at a mid-to-large enterprise.” You’re crafting a message for thousands of people who happen to share a few demographic traits. That isn’t personalization; it’s just better than average guessing, and we’ve been pretending it’s enough for two decades. The LLM doesn’t guess. It knows the exact question being asked. It knows the conversational context, the specific level of detail required, and increasingly, the user’s entire preferences and history. It takes your content and delivers precisely the answer that person needs, in the tone they want, contextualized against everything else they’ve researched. The second A has you beat on last-mile delivery, and the gap is widening.So, the logical question is: if the AI is going to handle the final delivery anyway, and it’s going to do a better job of contextualizing and personalizing than you can, then what exactly should you be optimizing for? The answer is: give the second A the best possible raw material. When I say, 'raw material,' I’m not talking about a prettier PDF or a blog post with better keywords. I’m talking about high-density brand truths. If you sell enterprise software, your 'raw material' is no longer a flowery case study; it is a structured, verifiable data set of your specific capabilities, compliance standards, and pricing logic that an agentic system can ingest without hallucinating. You are building an authoritative 'knowledge graph' for the machine to carry, not a brochure for a human to skim.<h3 id="the-expectation-ratchet">The expectation ratchet</h3>This shift isn’t going to reverse itself. In fact, I think the pace is going to catch most of the industry off guard.Every time an LLM provides a genuinely contextual, synthesized answer to a specific question, it raises the bar for what a human expects from information. Once you’ve asked a nuanced question and received a tailored, multi-source answer in 12 seconds – whether it’s about running shoes for flat feet or enterprise platforms that handle regulated content – browsing a website feels like thumbing through a phone book. And you don’t go back. You just don’t.I’ve been ringing the alarm about the obsolescence of various web paradigms since the WCM era (I even wrote for Inside CXM back in 2013 about how <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://digitalclaritygroup.com/archives/netflix-you-dont-know-diddly-about-context">Netflix was missing the mark on context</a>). But this is different. This isn’t about making the website; it’s about the website becoming a secondary delivery channel entirely. AI-referred web sessions surged 527% year-over-year in the first half of 2025. That isn’t just a trend line. It’s the foot of a curve. The website won’t die, but its primary purpose fundamentally shifts from a “destination for humans” to “content engine that feeds the AI layer.”<h3 id="the-invisible-editor">The invisible editor</h3>This is the part that keeps me up at night: the second A in H2A→A2H is, functionally, an editor. When a customer asks an LLM about your category, the model assembles an answer by making editorial decisions: which sources to cite, which claims to foreground, which brands to ignore. It’s curating and compressing your brand’s message in real time, at scale, millions of times a day, all with zero human oversight.You can’t pitch this editor. You can’t take it to lunch. You can’t send it an embargo or a press release with a personalized note. Trust me, I’ve spent enough time on both sides of the analyst and media relationship to know the value of those things, and they are useless here. The only way to influence the AI editor is by the quality of the raw material you feed it. Substance. Structure. Authority. Specificity. That’s it.Here’s the paradox: this shift should make brands more distinctive, not less. While everyone fears AI will homogenize communication, the opposite is happening. The AI editor is a clarity machine; it rewards the signal and incinerates the noise. Generic messaging gets compressed into noise. Bold, specific, and well-structured positions get cited. It rewards the brands that actually have something to say and punishes those running on platitudes. We’ve spent years hiding behind “marketing speak” that says nothing. Now, there’s a machine that can tell the difference. And it’s making editorial decisions about your brand accordingly.<h3 id="it’s-not-replacement.-the-reader-changed.">It’s not replacement. The reader changed.</h3>The marketer’s job hasn’t disappeared; the audience has simply evolved. Human judgment, brand instinct, strategic positioning, and point of view are more critical now than ever, because they are the only qualities that survive the compression of the second A. Everything else gets flattened. The premium on human thinking – real, substantive thinking, not “thought leadership” that says nothing – has never been higher.We are no longer crafting messages for a person to read on a screen. We are crafting substance for a machine to carry faithfully to a person. And if you get the substance right – if your ideas are clear, your data is solid, your point of view is genuinely distinctive – that machine will deliver your message with more precision and effectiveness than any website or email campaign in history.The flow has fundamentally changed: Humans create (with AI) for AI, and AI carries it to humans. It's H2A→A2H. This isn’t a 5-year roadmap; it’s a reality unfolding in months. But the ones who embrace it won’t just have a competitive advantage. They’ll be the only ones whose brands even show up. The question is whether you’ll be one of them. <hr /><h3 id="upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</h3> <img style="width:34.15%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/01/logo_jday_hor.png" /><h4 id="joomladay-usa-2026"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.jdayusa.com/">JoomlaDay USA 2026</a></h4>April 29 - May 2, 2026 – Delray Beach, FloridaBe part of the Joomla community in one of the most iconic cities in the world! JoomlaDay USA 2026 is coming to Delray Beach, and you can join us for a dynamic event packed with insights, workshops, and networking opportunities. Learn from top Joomla experts and developers offering valuable insights and real-world solutions. Participate in interactive workshops and sessions and enhance your skills in Joomla management, development, design, and more. And connect with fellow Joomla enthusiasts, developers, and professionals from across the world.<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.jdayusa.com/"> Book your seats today.</a> <img style="width:30.06%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/01/cms-summit-26-logo.jpg" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-summit-26"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit26">CMS Summit 26</a></h4>May 12-13, 2026 – Frankfurt, GermanyThe best conferences create space for honest, experience-based conversations. Not sales pitches. Not hype. Just thoughtful exchanges between people who spend their days designing, building, running, and evolving digital experiences. CMS Summit brings together people who share real stories from their work and platforms and who are interested in learning from each other on how to make things better. Over two days in Frankfurt, you can expect practitioner-led talks grounded in experience, conversations about trade-offs, constraints, and decisions, and time to compare notes with peers facing similar challenges. Space is limited for this exclusive event, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit26/tickets">so book your seats today.</a> <img style="width:30.13%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/12/image-1765546475634.png" /><h4 id="umbraco-codegarden-2026"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://codegarden.umbraco.com/">Umbraco Codegarden 2026</a></h4>June 10–11, 2026 – Copenhagen, DKJoin us in Copenhagen (or online) for the biggest Umbraco conference in the world – two full days of learning, genuine conversations, and the kind of inspiration that brings business leaders, developers, and digital creators together. Codegarden 2026 is packed with both business and tech content, from deep-dive workshops and advanced sessions to real-world case studies and strategy talks. You’ll leave with ideas, strategies, and knowledge you can put into practice immediately. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://codegarden.umbraco.com/">Book your tickets today.</a> <img style="width:36.69%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/01/open-source-cms-26.jpg" /><h4 id="open-source-cms-26"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/opensourcecms26">Open Source CMS 26</a></h4>October 20–21, 2026 – Utrecht, NetherlandsJoin us for the first annual edition of our prestigious international conference dedicated to making open source CMS better. This event is already being called the “missing gathering place” for the open source CMS community – an international conference with confirmed participants from Europe and North America. Be part of a friendly mix of digital leaders from notable open source CMS projects, agencies, even a few industry analysts who get together to learn, network, and talk about what really matters when it comes to creating better open source CMS projects right now and for the foreseeable future. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/opensourcecms26/tickets">Book your tickets today.</a>

You’re Writing for the Wrong Audience

scottliewehr

Sweet FlowMotion: Storyblok Transforms Content Updates into Automated Workflows

Matt & Matt, Episode 3: Broadway, Serendipity, Product Evangelism, and the New Rules of AI Visibility 

Axe the ‘Coordination Tax’: New data says CX teams are struggling – and AI isn’t helping

Shopify - The global commerce platform

Build your business with Shopify to sell online, offline, and everywhere in between.

The global commerce platform

#ffffff

Explore a wide range of informative articles, insights, and industry updates. Stay informed and ahead of the curve with our diverse collection of news and posts covering the latest trends and developments in the industry. Page - 3

News

The easiest way to translate a website

The global commerce platform